I Hate The Way My Voice Sounds

What Is An Image?

For September's newsletters, I felt called to dig into self-image and explore all the ways that our perception of ourselves affects our relationship with ourselves, with others, and with the world around us. Believe it or not, self-image is something I've struggled with my entire life and has evolved from wanting to fit in to wanting to stand out to wanting to just be authentic in whatever way feels most true in the moment. Self-image is a multifaceted idea that exists on every plane of reality but it ultimately boils down to our beliefs about ourselves and our beliefs about how others see us.

The word 'image' has latin origins and is closely related to the word 'imitate'. An image is defined as a representation of the external form of a person or thing. In other words, an image is a model of a thing or a snapshot of how a thing is perceived from a particular perspective; but what an image is not is the thing itself. I used to have the biggest crush on Zoe Saldana and used to collect images of her on my Tumblr and imagine one day meeting her and making her fall in love with me.

But regardless of how detailed my imaginary relationship with Zoe was in my head, the images I created of us had no basis in reality and was rather just a figment of my imagination; that is, the creation of something in my mind that I hadn't actually witnessed in reality. In reality, I may not have even liked Zoe Saldana had I actually met her and that is the pitfall of an image — they create an inherent gap between what we perceive and what actually is. And within this gap there's so much room from misunderstanding, confusion, and delusion. In fact, it was the delusional self-image that I held of myself at the time that allowed me to even believe that a mega-famous movie star would ever want to be with me in the first place.

Until we reach a certain point in healing, the bulk of the beliefs we hold about ourselves are learned from what those around us have to say about us. It's important to acknowledge that no one is born knowing language and that the language we learn is a foundational aspect of how we view ourselves. Since we learn language from our environments, the words and ideas that we use to define ourselves are also birthed from our environments. The image that many of us manufacture for ourselves is often the result of surveying our environments and creating a character that will, at worst, survive in that environment and at best, thrive in that environment. This creates a slippery slope, though, because it roots our self-concept in the self-concepts of those around us which can be beneficial if those around us have healthy self-concepts and detrimental if they have harmful self-concepts.

Typically when we think 'image' we think 'visual' but our self-image consists, not only of how we look but also of how we sound. Communication is a integral part of what it means to be human and being that most of us communicate primarily with our voices, the way we sound when we speak is indivisible from our self-image. In this newsletter I want to explore how the way my voice was perceived by those around me contributed to my own self-concept growing up. The opinions of others about how I sound contributed to the complicated relationship that I had with my voice for a very long time and learning to accept my voice, as it naturally is, was a critical step in learning to love myself.

You Can Sing?!

If I had to use 50 words to describe myself at the present, 'singer' would not be among them but believe it or not, at one point in my life, singing was a big part of who I was. I used to love to sing and I used to be pretty good at it. Like many of us, my journey in performing music started in the church. Growing up, going to church was not optional and neither was singing in the choir. And though I would have greatly preferred to sleep in on Sunday mornings, I must admit that music and being able to sing was one of the few things that made going to church somewhat enjoyable.

Even though I was often granted solo parts in songs as a part of the children's choir, I never really got heavy validation that I was a good singer from the church environment. Perhaps because my style wasn't a traditionally gospel sounding style meaning I didn't have a powerful, raspy, soulful voice but instead it was softer, understated, and reserved. When my mom was asked if I could sing by her friends she would often respond 'when he opens his mouth' which was to say that I was always shy when asked to sing and the lack of confidence that I had in my ability definitely contributed to how it came out.

This all changed when I got into 7th grade and decided to retire the clarinet I'd picked up the year before and instead of band, I chose choir as the mandatory arts extracurricular activity that I wanted to pursue. We'd just got a new choir teacher whose name I honestly don't remember but I think it was Ms. Starling so we're going to call her Ms. Starling. For whatever reason, she took a liking to me early on and gave me a lot of attention in chorus class. She regularly assigned me solos and often asked me to stay after school so she could give me vocal lessons and help prepare me for upcoming concerts. Each year at the end of the year we had awards day and for both 7th and 8th grade, the two years she was my teacher, Ms. Starling gave me the highest award for a singer in the chorus, "The Exceptional Talent" award.

Ms. Starling knew that I came from a modest background and she believed that my voice could provide me a ticket to a college education and towards the end of my 8th grade year she did two things for me to try and help me achieve the goal of getting into college. The first thing was, she informed me about and encouraged me to apply to the Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, an arts high-school in Greenville, South Carolina that had a track record of training musicians, dancers, and visual artists to excel at the college level. I took her advice, applied, and auditioned for the Governor School's summer discovery program the summer before my freshman year of high school, got in, and had one of the best and most defining experiences of my teenage years during it. At the end of the discovery program, I was invited to apply to attend the Governor's school for the duration of high-school but, despite Ms. Starlings insistence that if I got in I'd be "a shoo-in for college", I chose not to apply because I wanted to remain in Laurens and graduate with the friends I'd grew up with.

The second thing that Ms. Starling did for me was set up an audition for Laurens High School's concert choir, a choir that was typically reserved for the best singers in the upperclass meaning freshman were usually not allowed. But since Ms. Starling believed in me so much, and since the concert choir had a need for male voices, she convinced the choir director from the high school to let me audition before I even entered high school. I got in and spent a huge amount of time my freshman year studying, rehearsing, performing, and traveling to compete in statewide competitions as a member of the concert choir.

Concert choir was integral in the development of my self-image as a teenager in ways you probably wouldn't imagine. There's a stigma around band kids that they are freaks who like to explore their sexuality during school trips and I must admit the same is true for choir kids. On a trip to Georgia for a choral competition during my freshman year of high school I got my first kiss, got flashed for the first time, and fondled ('fondled' is being used intentionally here because it happened during a game of 'Truth or Dare' and the dare was to fondle, with permission, of course) my first set of breasts all on the same trip, lol. Being a part of the concert choir enhanced my confidence, not just as a singer, but as a developing teenage boy in a way that was really special at the time but that didn't last very long.

About halfway through my freshman year in concert choir, I wanted to quit because being in choir or band or anything other than sports was seen as lame by anyone outside of the arts realm and since my interest in girls and social status in general was rapidly increasing, I didn't want to be associated with anything that was considered uncool. It's funny, in middle school being told that I could sing did wonders for my self-image coming from a home where I was almost never celebrated or told that I was good at anything but getting into high school, being a singer had the opposite affect on my self-image because singing the alma mater, the national anthem, classical pieces of music, and medleys of music from Disney movies was probably one of the least cool things I could have ever participated in. And let's be honest, until you're rich and famous, artsy boys are seen as a bit 'fruity' and being that I wanted to attract the cool girls and be accepted by the cool guys, the idea that I could be perceived as 'gay' was horrifying to me.

But the final nail in the coffin on my singing career was not the fear that I would be judged and misunderstood but rather it was puberty. Towards the end of my freshman year of high-school, my voice started to change. I was no longer the soft toned tenor that I'd known myself to be since middle school and was now much closer to a baritone or even a bass. To say that I hated the way my new voice sounded would be a vast understatement. Not only was my speaking voice boxy, strange, and inconsistent, I felt like I couldn't sing anymore at all. So I did the worst thing that a male singer going through puberty could do, I stopped singing. Which meant I never learned how to appropriately use my new voice. My joy and desire for singing died with this change and my self-image of being a talented singer died with it.

From A Frog To A Prince

Not only is my voice low, it's also 'boxy' meaning it sounds muffled, constrained, and without much inflection or personality; or at least that's how it was for most of my teens and into my early 20s. For this reason, picking up women at the bar or in the club was never something that I was super interested in for the simple fact that my voice always got washed out by the loud music in the background which meant that if I wanted to be heard, I had to yell and that's one of the least attractive things you can do to someone you're trying to charm. I remember my freshman year of college being playfully teased by a girl that my voice sounded like a frog. Back then my voice sounded much worse than it does now because my concept of masculinity at the time meant having a voice that was monotone and lacking in emotional expression. What the girl who teased me didn't know is that my monotone voice was mostly a mask to be perceived as masculine as possible because my concept of 'real men' back then was that they were always stoic, even-keeled, and honestly, pretty plain.

I got the opportunity to develop my voice more when I decided to move to Oklahoma City and pursue my dreams of becoming a rapper/producer. This was the first time that I'd ever heard my recorded voice consistently and it was also the first time I felt comfortable exploring the different tones that my voice was capable of producing in order to make entertaining vocals on my songs. Similar to the experience I had in middle school with Ms. Starling, being in a band and being surrounded by other musicians who regularly gave me positive feedback about how my voice sounded and coaching on how to improve it was super empowering for me and gave me the confidence that perhaps my voice wasn't as boring, boxy, and froggy as I'd convinced myself that it was. I'd started to hear from many people, who had no reason to lie to me, that they liked my voice as it was and I started to like it too. To be fair, I still don't consider myself a 'good' singer anymore but I also no longer hate the way my voice sounds when I sing and honestly, if I put in the work to train it, I think that I could be a decent singer again.

The most impactful experience I've had in reshaping my self-image surrounding my voice came when I was in Yoga Teacher training. My teacher was coaching us, one by one, on how we could use our unique voices to engage our classes. When she got to me she said something to the effect of "Micheal, let's talk about this powerful voice you have." and something about how it "commands the attention of the room". Hearing this was super confusing to me at first because, as I stated earlier, I'd always thought of my voice as soft and timid and easily lost in the background. But my Yoga teacher heard something else when I spoke and because I admired her so much and could tell that she meant was she said, I believed her and I leaned into it.

I didn't recognize it at the time but a large part of why my voice sounded so powerful during Yoga teacher training is because of the healing work I'd done on myself the two years prior. When we are carrying a lot of unresolved trauma it affects our voices because trauma affects our self-confidence, our self-image, and our ability to authentically express ourselves. The healing work that I'd done allowed me to stop feeling the need to hide the inflections in my voice out of fear of how they might be perceived. It also allowed me to project my voice more loudly because the little boy who had been scared to boldly speak his truth, whose voice often cracked or went missing in times when he needed to defend himself, no longer felt afraid or repressed.

Since Yoga teacher training I've used my healed voice to lead lots of Yoga classes, give speeches and talks, record guided meditations, and to my surprise, I've even had some people tell me that they find my froggy voice healing. I often hear people say that they hate their voices and there have been times in my life when I felt the same way but I don't feel that way anymore. Froggy or not, I have learned to love my voice because it played an integral part in all of the experiences that have made me—me, and I'm grateful for all the experiences that have allowed me to develop my voice in a way that it can now be used to serve others and to hopefully help them come into a greater acceptance of their own voices and even more, of themselves.

What's Going On With Me?

Yesterday was one of the most magical days of my life and trying to describe it would take another full length post and I'm honestly still processing it but let's just say I had a couple full circle moments. For as long as I can remember, I've always felt a bit out of place. Many people feel out of place because of their identities but for me, it was never that I felt out of place because of who I am but instead I felt out of place on Earth in general. I distinctly remember several moments during childhood when I had this intense longing for home —even though I was in the only home I'd ever known. There were a couple moments during childhood where I felt a feeling that felt similar to this home I'd never known and one of those moments was during the end of one my favorite childhood movies, 'A Goofy Movie', where a song entitled I2I(Eye to Eye) sang by Tevin Campbell played. This song, especially a particular part that goes:

If a wall should come between us
Too high to climb, too hard to break through
I know that love will lead us
And find a way to bring me to you

made feel things that felt both foreign and familiar as a little child but it definitely reminded me of that home I'd longed for.

I2I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsNS5gnUTj4

Fast forward to yesterday, and Prince's 'Diamonds and Pearls' has been on repeat in my head for the past few days – particularly the part that goes:

There will come a time (There'll come a time)
When love will blow your mind (Blow your mind)
And everything you'll look for you'll find (Take a look inside, yeah)

I became curious who the lady vocalist on this part of 'Diamonds and Pearls' was so I looked it up and discovered it was Rosie Gaines (who's also from a city called Pittsburg 🤯) which led me to her Wikipedia page and discovering that she also sang on I2I, the song that reminded me of home, triggering me to think of it for the first time in like 25 years. With this triggering came so many feelings within me of nostalgia and joy and wonder and is a full circle moment because of something else that happened yesterday.

I was guided to ride around downtown on my bike, something that I haven't done before because I don't want to get hit a by a car, and I was guided to a place that I hadn't seen since I first visited Pittsburgh last year when I came here to look for an apartment. The place I was guided to is a little alley with this beautiful array of LED lights overhead that I honestly had forgotten about and was not at all looking for but when I saw it, I was instantly reminded that I'd been here before. And it made me very emotional because it caused me to reflect on how much has changed and how much I've grown since that first day I visited Pittsburgh.

My journey to Pittsburgh and my spiritual journey in general is a journey of returning home. And what I've discovered is that the home that I was longing for as a child is love. Not an earthly love, not a love based on conditions or circumstances, or judgements or agreements but a pure, uncaused, and unconditional love. And it made me realize that the reason why I came to Pittsburgh was not necessarily to make Pittsburgh my home but because Pittsburgh is the place where I've rediscovered that home is the love that is always within me. And despite how tall or hard to break through the wall that comes between me and my home may appear to be, I know that ultimately love will always bring us back together.

With love,

Micheal Sinclair 💜